UK CONDEMNS ‘THUGGISH’ ANTI-MIGRANT PROTEST IN PORTSMOUTH
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Agency Repoer
The British government has condemned as “thuggish” an anti-migrant protest in Portsmouth after hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads in an attempt to prevent asylum seekers who arrived by small boat from leaving the southern English city.
The protest, which took place on Sunday night, was the second major anti-migrant demonstration in the UK over the weekend.
On Saturday, large groups of masked men reportedly blocked access to the Port of Dover, another key point for Channel crossings.
“We condemn the intimidating and thuggish behaviour we saw in Portsmouth last night,” a spokesperson for the UK Home Office said in a statement on Monday.
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but it must never cross a line into disorder.”
Footage shared on social media showed protesters, many dressed in black with their faces covered, confronting police officers carrying riot shields.
Police formed a security cordon around buses waiting to transport the asylum seekers to a processing centre. Officials said the migrants were eventually transported from the area.
The protest followed a report from French authorities that a vessel carrying about 140 people had departed Baie de Seine in Normandy and was heading towards England’s southern coast.
Arrivals of small boats in Hampshire, where Portsmouth is located, are relatively rare, with most Channel crossings reaching the UK further east in Kent, where the distance between the French and British coasts is shorter.
Local Conservative lawmaker Joe Robertson described the arrival as “extremely concerning”, calling for authorities to establish whether people smugglers were using new routes.
“We need to know exactly what happened and if new routes are being used for mega-dinghies by people smugglers,” he wrote on X.
Britain has faced growing political and public pressure over dangerous Channel crossings, with tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving annually on the southeast coast in recent years.
The issue has also contributed to growing support for the hard-right Reform UK party.
The Home Office said last week that the number of small-boat crossings in August fell to its lowest level since records began in 2018, while migrant arrivals were also at their lowest level since 2020.
However, authorities have reported an increase in the number of passengers travelling in individual boats in recent months.
According to Home Office data, 16,513 migrants had crossed the English Channel in small boats since the beginning of 2026.
The government data also indicates that small-boat arrivals represent only a fraction of the total number of people seeking to move to Britain, with the majority arriving through legal routes.
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